Metaphorical, Poetic
It doesn't take long to realize that Toni Morrison likes to use a lot of symbolic language in her books. In the book's opening scene, for example, Son's sighting of a town called Queen of France leads the narrator to remark that "Queen of France was already showing lights scattered like teardrops from a sky pierced to weeping by the blade tip of an early star" (P.3). Dang. That's beautiful. It's also dense.
For starters, we need to process the fact that the lights of the town are like little tears that have fallen from the sky. But then we need to realize that the sky has started to weep because it's been pierced or stabbed by a star, a star like a blade. Phew. We should get a gold star for unpacking that one… though not a gold star like a blade, please.
These dense similes are a bit of a challenge, but remember that they always have a larger purpose. This metaphor above, for example, helps to foreshadow the realization that Margaret used to pierce her son Michael with needles when he was a baby. So just have faith that the point of Morrison's language will be revealed eventually.